The Great Leap Forward (1958-62)

Communes (Social)
1. 750,000 collectives brought into 70,000 communes
2. competition communes-officials lied about figures they had produced. Government took percent output, no food left
3. 10x sizes of collectives
Backyard steel (industry)
1. Stopped people farming
2. Poor quality
Conspiracy of silence (social)
1. People to afraid to criticise because of anti-rightist campaign
2. Lushan conference (1959), Peng Deuai criticised method and was punished and kicked out of party.
Propaganda (social)
1. "Reach for the stars and the moon" - overtake capitalist countries.
2. enforced mass mobilisation
3. People shouted slogans to the workers in the farms
Self-reliance (social)
1. Mao fell out with USSR
2. Wanted China to be independent
Famine (social/farming)
1. 45 million died
2. quarter of Tibets people died
3. people given 125g of grain a day - not enough
Poor farming methods (farming)
1. Sparrowcide, killed sparrows to stop eating grain but sparrows weren't there to kill worms and bugs
2. Bad weather - droughts 1959/1960 reduced to 144 million bones
3. Lysenkoism
  1. deep planting, close together turned out spindly -wrong method
Family life (social)
1. Communes everyone put together with canteens and dorms to sleep in
  1. Families didn't see each other
  2. Elderlys in "happy homes" and babies in nurseries

Resource summary

	Created by sophj2012 about 10 years ago